Her hope lies Down Under

Her hope lies Down Under

Mail Tribune / Bob Pennell

Lindsey Christy, left, has a chance for a better life, thanks in part to the fund-raising efforts of Hanby Middle School classmates like Kelsey Holderness, center, and Tiffani Stark.

Girl will travel to Australia for unusual surgery to kill tumor

By MELISSA MARTIN
Mail Tribune

GOLD HILL - Lindsey Christy sometimes blurts out strange laughing sounds during art class. She's been known to sit at home for two hours staring or picking at her clothes. And she can scream in anger at her parents for no apparent reason.

Epileptic seizures and fits of rage caused by a grape-sized tumor in the center of her brain have plagued 13-year-old Lindsey since birth. But for the first time in her life, Lindsey has hope of recovery. She's scheduled for innovative brain surgery at Royal Children's Hospital in Melbourne, Australia, in March.

Lindsey's friends help raise money for expensive trip

Hanby Middle School students hope to start a Sparrow Club to match funds they raise for eighth-grader Lindsey Christy.

The founder of the Sparrow Foundation, Jeff Leeland, will speak during the Mayor's Prayer Breakfast set for 7 a.m. Friday at the Rogue Valley Country Club. Students involved in Sparrow Clubs adopt a child who has a medical need and then raise money for the procedure.

Hanby students and staff raised $4,200 last week during a spaghetti dinner and hay ride before the school's choir concert. The Sparrow Foundation will contribute a $2,560 match.

There are about 30 Sparrow Clubs across the country that have raised $500,000 to meet the medical needs of 50 children.

"It gives an outlet, a vehicle to invite kids to do something," said Leeland, who lives in Redmond. "But it's more than the money; it's the spirit of compassion and love that surrounds the family, the child and her friends."

At Hanby Middle School last week, Lindsey's friends were motivated by her upcoming surgery in Australia to bus tables, seat guests, serve food and clean up the kitchen. About 1,000 people from Gold Hill and Central Point showed up.

"When you have somebody you are doing this for, it gives you more energy," said eighth-grader Tiffani Stark.

Classmate Kelsey Holderness spent the evening doing one of her favorite jobs - offering a friendly smile as a table hostess.

"I got tired, but it made us feed good because we were contributing and helping," Holderness said.

The spaghetti feed may be the first of several fund-raisers for Lindsey's surgery, said seventh-grader Dominic Eason, who helped serve cookies at last week's event.

"I was talking to my dad about having another fund-raiser at Lava Lanes," Dominic said.

Leeland, 45, started the Sparrow Foundation four years ago after his son, Michael, needed a $175,000 bone marrow transplant that insurance wouldn't cover.

Students at the school where he taught took up the cause.

"The kids went nuts," Leeland said. "They made donation boxes for the classrooms. The freshmen donated all the money from the end-of-the-year dance. Seattle-area schools started helping out.

"They raised $227,000 in less than four weeks and we paid cash for Michael's transplant," Leeland said.

The miracle inspired Leeland's first book, "One Small Sparrow," (Multnomah Books 1995) and prompted him to start Sparrow Foundation. He and his wife, Kristi, have five children, including 10-year-old Michael.

"We've always been told it's an inoperable tumor in the center of her brain - 'Don't go near it,' " said Debbie Christy, Lindsey's mom and a dental assistant in Medford.

She describes Lindsey as a teenager who enjoys listening to music, singing in the school choir and playing intramural volleyball, but who tires easily and sleeps a lot.

Lindsey may be able to say goodbye to the seizures that hound her after her family found hope through an Internet site created and maintained by Lindsey's father, Carl Christy. Internet friends introduced them to Dr. Jeffrey Rosenfeld, who has removed rare, benign brain tumors in 25 children with hypothalamic hamartoma, the condition Lindsey has.

The family needs $45,000 for travel expenses and for the surgery, which is too experimental to be covered by insurance. So far they've raised $15,900 - $4,200 each from Hanby Middle School students and Central Point Assembly of God as well as $7,500 by family members.

"These tumors never grow and are never cancerous; they just sit there and cause havoc," said Carl Christy, a network specialist. His Web site offers information and communication links for 120 people worldwide caring for about 65 children with tumors, including three in Oregon.

What's so revolutionary about the Australian neurosurgeon's method is that he performs the surgery from the top of the head, not from the traditional approach near the cheek or temple, Carl Christy said.

"He cuts a 4-centimeter square hole in the top of the skull and using a powerful microscope guides an instrument - an ultrasonic aspirator - down between the two hemispheres or sides of the brain into the third ventricle. The aspirator collapses the tumor with high-frequency ultrasound and then sucks it out," according to a June 22 article in The Age, a Melbourne newspaper.

Lindsey and family members will stay in Melbourne for about six weeks. Following the surgery, the medical team will monitor her sodium levels, which could fluctuate enough to put Lindsey in a coma, Debbie Christy said.

It wasn't an easy decision to schedule such a high-risk surgery in the part of the brain that controls hormones, emotions, aggression, sexual drive, memory, thirst, blood pressure and sleep. But the family was motivated by the hope of Lindsey living a normal, productive life, Carl Christy said.

"If we don't do anything, what is it going to be like in five or 10 years?" Carl Christy asked. "Lindsey can't make change or tell the time by looking at a clock on the wall. She doesn't have life skills. She could be dependent on her parents the rest of her life and she could get worse."

One of Rosenfeld's patients was 9-year-old Kayla Mee of Klamath Falls, who had about 80 percent of her tumor removed last November.

"I would definitely do it again," said her mother, Vickie Godfrey of Klamath Falls. "Kayla was having six to 10 seizures a day; it was scary."

She now hasn't had a seizure since May 19, Godfrey said.

Lindsey and her family hope the surgery will also mean an end to her seizures, which sometimes occur 15 times a day.

To learn more about hypothalamic hamartoma, visit the Web site www.hhugs.com. Click on "Our HH Family" to reach Lindsey's web site.

Those wishing to donate may call Hanby Principal Mary Barker at 664-7291.

Reach reporter Melissa Martin at 776-4497, or e-mail mmartin@mailtribune.com


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